Mental Health and Criminal Justice

Background

In the US people with mental illnesses are 14 times more likely to be incarcerated than hospitalized. Treating people with behavioral health challenges and substance use disorder has been proven to be more safe, effective and humane than incarceration. Below are speeches, articles, and studies that explore this issue.

In the January/February 2016 issue of Correctional Mental Health Report, Steve Rosenberg, the president of COCHS, writes about how our behavioral health care systems and correctional systems must be re-engineered to more appropriately respond to the needs of offenders suffering from behavioral health disorders.View article...

In Cornerstone, the magazine of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, Dan Mistak, COCHS' general counsel, explains how two tectonic shifts in the health care world have poised legal aid lawyers and defenders to better advocate for community solutions to client needs: the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Section 223 of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (otherwise known as the “Excellence Act”). Read more...

Too often individuals end up in the criminal justice system because of a lack of access to behavioral health care in their communities. The Excellence Act has the potential to change this cycle. Read more...

In a speech to a meeting of Prosecutors Against Gun Violence, Judge Steven Leifman talks about his experience being a judge in Miami-Dade County. At the time of his election, he did not realize he would become the gatekeeper to the largest psychiatric facility in the State of Florida: the Miami-Dade County Jail. Judge Leifman proposes ten essential elements to improve the care of individuals suffering from mental illness and behavioral health challenges. Read more...

Research shows that significant health disparities exist for incarcerated persons of color, including the occurrence of infection, violence, and mortality. Because persons
with mental illness have longer lengths of stay than others, they now represent approximately 38% of persons in jail. In New York City, both non-White and young patients appear to be less likely to enter the jail mental health system and more likely to enter solitary confinement than their White and older counterparts. Read more...

In California hundreds of criminal defendants declared incompetent to stand trial are sitting in county jails around the state awaiting transfer to state facilities for mental health treatment. Commenting on an ACLU lawsuit concerning this practice, Dan Mistak, COCHS general counsel,said the lack of treatment beds dates back decades to when California began deinstitutionalizing mentally ill people . . . “There hasn’t been a social safety net for these folks and what’s happened is the jail has actually stepped in in order to make up for essentially what’s been a lack of these services everywhere else,” Mistak noted. Read more...